Chapter 6: Obstruction

Fox's consciousness returned to him slowly, his eyes closed but his nerves becoming cognizant of something touching him. With his memory dulled by the void of sleep, he opened his eyes and looked to his left to find Scarlet sitting up in bed next to him, stroking his head with a contented, gentle smile on her lips. She wore the same amount of clothing she had taken to bed—in other words, none—and seeing everything she had been endowed with jolted his brain into wake mode more quickly than any alarm clock could have.

He sat up next to her and locked eyes, then glanced at the digital clock next to the bed. 4:45 AM. Somehow, seeing the number made him immediately feel more tired.

"You didn't have to wake me so early," he complained, although he appreciated the view enough for his comment to come out in a semi-positive way.

"I'm a light sleeper," Scarlet replied. "Something told me to wake up, so I did. Thought maybe you'd like to join me. Sleep isn't very exciting, after all."

"It's also important. What are you even supposed to do at this hour?"

"Well, look at it this way," said Scarlet, "We're got a 5-star suite to ourselves for four more hours before we have to turn in the key. Wouldn't you rather be awake for that? Come on—up and at 'em."

Trying to lead by example, she brushed off the bedcovers and climbed out of bed, her toe claws tapping on the dark gray stone floor as she walked to the front of the bed. Fox noticed that select parts of her fur had a matted texture, which coincided with a distinct musky smell that hung over the bedchamber.

"Come on, sleepyhead—get up," Scarlet playfully demanded, her tail swishing back and forth as she stared at him with arms crossed.

With a groan, Fox obliged her and slid out of bed. He eyed his boxers—discarded on the floor next to him—and considered slipping them on, but he had a feeling Scarlet would react with disappointment if he did that. So, he simply picked them up and placed them on the ottoman in front of the bed, next to Scarlet's clothes. The red vixen walked across the cavernous suite to her duffel bag near the bathroom and dug out a small pill bottle. Bringing it back to the chamber's dining table, she walked over to the room's stocked refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. While Fox slowly made his way to the table, Scarlet popped one of the pills and washed it down before setting her water bottle on the table.

Fox had a feeling he knew what medication she had taken, but felt the need to ask anyway. "Plan B?"

"I don't want kids," Scarlet replied, confirming his suspicion. "And don't look at me that way—I know you're thinking about why a freelance mercenary would keep a bottle of birth control pills in her bag while on the job, and the answer is the same. I'm not a slut—trust me. I just really don't want kids."

Fox let a faint smirk work its way onto his lips. "Did you really bring them with you because part of your plan was getting in bed with me all along? Be honest."

A rare blush covered Scarlet's cheeks. "Maybe…"

"Hopefully the effort was worth it for you," said Fox, still grinning.

"Oh, absolutely," Scarlet replied. "You were amazing."

She took a step towards the suite's pool, then dipped her feet in the pool and took one step deeper, turning towards Fox and beckoning him to join her. He followed her hint and stepped into the waist-high water at the shallow end of the pool. Taking his hand, Scarlet walked with her feet on the bottom of the pool towards the balcony, crossing through the force field divider before reaching the end of the pool, which overlooked the beach and the lake.

With the water just above chest level, Scarlet crossed her arms on the sandstone ledge at the end of the pool and leaned forward, resting her head on her arms. To her surprise and delight, Fox sidled up next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

The vixen gave him a warm glance out of the corner of her eye before returning her gaze to the scenery below. "Do you still wish I would have let you sleep in?"

"No—you were right," Fox replied.

Scarlet let out a sigh, allowing Fox to feel the muscles in her back soften. "Too bad this is going to end. I really enjoyed spending time with you yesterday. We really packed a lot into one day, didn't we?"

"You're not kidding," Fox replied. "But what do you mean about 'this' ending?"

Scarlet looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Well, I assume you're going back to the Lylat System in a few hours. As much as I would love for you to follow me to Skallis, I'm not getting that vibe from you."

Fox replied by giving Scarlet's shoulder a pat. "That's where you're wrong. I'm interested."

Her eyes widened, and an undisguised look of glee materialized on her face. Turning away from the overlook and facing Fox, she remarked, "Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about."

Fox placed both hands on her shoulders, gently massaging them with his thumbs. "There's enough room in my battleship's hangar if you want to ride along. I won't charge you for it…" he smirked, "…Under the condition that you won't make me pay for that tire."

Scarlet responded with a dry laugh, knowing that the fuel needed to reach Skallis exceeded the cost of one tire by an unspeakable multiplier. "Sure, that'll make us even." She paused and took a deep breath, then added, "Wow, this is amazing. I really wasn't expecting you to agree to any of this."

"It's not like I've got anything better to do," said Fox. "I also kind of want to see where this business with Asgard leads."

Scarlet nodded. "Same. When I'm on a job, I don't usually think about why I was hired to do it; but this is different. They're up to something, that's for sure."

"'Rejuvenation of Cerinia', that's what the Asgard CEO said."

"That makes me uncomfortable," said Scarlet.

Fox tilted his head slightly. "Why is that?"

"Look at it this way—Antoine Carache didn't become the CEO of Asgard Industries by being an altruist and by promoting welfare programs on other planets. He might have a personal attachment to whatever he and his buddy Neron have in mind, but in the end, it's all about the bottom line for him. Felix has probably seen my message by now, and I'd bet money that he's already trying to figure out where Carache sees a business opportunity in this."

"About this 'Neron' guy," Fox cut in. "You obviously knew about him before. Who is he?"

An aura of anger and tension snaked its way into Scarlet's body language. "I'm happy to explain it for you, but let's get out of the pool first. I'm here to relax, and even thinking about that dipshit is doing everything but helping me unwind."

Fox's expression fell. "Sorry for bringing him up, then."

Scarlet tried to reassure Fox with a soft smile. "I wouldn't expect you to have known better. Neron is a sore spot for me. Last night was not the first time we met."

Acknowledging that her pleasurable dip with Fox had reached its unfortunate end, Scarlet pulled herself out of the pool at its deepest point without bothering to swim or walk back to the steps at the other end. While Fox made his way back to the shallow end, Scarlet walked into her suite's bathroom and wrapped herself in one of the resort's black bath robes. She grabbed a second robe for Fox and handed it to him as he stepped out of the pool.

The vixen took a seat on the pool edge and dipped her black-furred lower legs into the water. Fox took the hint and sat next to her.

"I'll keep it simple," said Scarlet, "When I worked as a bounty hunter, Neron was one of my targets. He had an outrageous bounty on his head—the biggest payout I've ever seen to this day. I worked my ass off to track him down. I spent weeks teaching myself how to screen my thoughts so his stupid Cerinian mental bullshit wouldn't protect him from me. I finally caught up to him in the Aparoid Wilds on fucking Zharon—he thought no one would be insane enough to go there to catch him. But he was wrong. I killed him, documented it, and claimed that bounty." She closed her eyes and exhaled a furious breath. "And now I find out that somehow he's alive. I know damn well that I finished the job. You saw his creepy cybernetic face, right?"

Fox nodded.

Scarlet continued, "I double tapped him to make sure he was dead. Some idiot resurrected that bastard."

"Carache mentioned something about a 'Dr. Reige' during that chat with Neron," Fox suggested. "Whoever they are, it sounds like they're behind some part of whatever Asgard is doing. It sounded like the doctor was someone Neron knew—not Carache."

The vixen took a moment to process her thoughts. "I don't even know, Fox. It doesn't make any sense. Most Cerinians keep to themselves on their own planet. Neron was a fugitive when I was hunting him. The contract came through a back channel that my primary contact strongly suggested went all the way back to Cerinia's leadership. I don't think he had enough time to make any friends by the time I took him out." She sighed. "None of that matters now, though."

Fox frowned. "I'm sorry I even asked about him in the first place."

"It was going to come up at some point anyway," Scarlet replied, moving her right leg in the water. "At least I got it out of the way."

Looking around the room and then at the distant balcony, Fox thought about the time—still before 5:00 AM—and wondered aloud, "Now what? It's still hours before we can get ready to leave this planet."

Scarlet turned her head and looked at him, a subtle smile on her face. "I need to get properly cleaned up after last night, so I'm going to take a bath. Feel free to join me—there's definitely enough room for two." She paused, then raised a devious eyebrow. "…Or, you could say no and go around smelling like me instead. Even though I'd be slightly flattered, I think we'd both enjoy the first option more."

"I don't really take baths," said Fox.

"That's because you haven't had someone like me to take them with," Scarlet replied. "Come on, you know you want to."

Fox glanced at his companion and smirked. "You're right, I do."

"Of course you do."

- § -

"Hello? Fox? How's it going?"

"It's going well, Peppy," replied Fox, standing in the Oasis Resort's spacecraft docking area next to his Arwing several hours later. "Just wanted to let you know that my work here is done and that I'll be heading back to the Great Fox."

The hare chuckled. "Well, that was a short vacation. Slippy and I were just starting to map out the attractions around here!"

"That's just how it goes sometimes. But yeah, the job's done. Can't say it went perfectly, but the job file is closed now."

"That's what I like to hear. After that last gap between jobs, I was starting to get worried."

"You and me both, Peppy." He paused, uncertain of his mentor's response to what he was about to propose. "One more thing…"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to be heading to Skallis. This outcome of this last job is probably going to lead to more work. And, uh…I'm bringing a guest with me."

Peppy halted for a moment, then responded in a quieter voice than before. "Let me guess—is it Felix's 'associate' that he mentioned in the job offer?"

Fox smiled nervously. "Yeah. She's also going to Skallis and we have good chemistry, so I figured she might as well dock in our hangar."

"Good chemistry, huh?" Peppy chuckled. "That can mean several things—but I'm going to assume you found yourself a love interest, you sly dog."

"Well, uh…not exactly…but…"

Peppy responded with even more laughter. "I was just playing with you, but if you say so, sure. I guess you're not going to need to blow the dust out of one of those spare crew quarters, if you know what I mean."

Fox's face flushed red. "Just…stop talking. I'll see you back on the ship. No rush—it's going to take a little while for me to help load up Scarlet's gear."

"Ah, so that's her name. Not very creative, but I suppose it goes with yours pretty well. Catch you later!"

"Hey!" Fox barked, only to realize that by the time he had formulated a response, Peppy had already ended the call, presumably while laughing himself silly.

Shaking his head, Fox turned around and looked towards the spacecraft parking area's main entrance. His Arwing stood behind him, with all of his "vacation" clothes and toiletries packed away in the fighter's storage bin. He glanced at the smart watch on his wrist and noted the time—9:52 in the morning. He thought about accompanying Scarlet while she returned the rental SUV, but if he was honest—and he was, both with himself and Scarlet—he elected to stay at the Oasis on the off chance that the local authorities had an eye out for the vehicle after the previous night's hijinks. He thought about calling Scarlet to ask for an update, but for the moment, he simply stood in front of his Arwing, waiting for something to happen.

A matter of minutes later, a flash of red fur caught his eye. Scarlet walked into the parking area, wearing a yellow tank top and jean shorts. She locked eyes with Fox and gave him a relieved smile.

Fox took a step towards her as she approached her fighter, parked next to his. "I guess it all worked out."

Scarlet let out a deep sigh. "I'll be honest—I feel like I need to not push my luck too much for a little while. I used up a lot of it in the past few days. But yeah—the rental's all paid for. Let's get out of here before anything else happens."

Fox nodded. "I let my navigator Peppy know you were going to dock your ship in our hangar, so you're not going to have any problems there."

"Peppy's still flying these days?" asked Scarlet, tilting her head.

"You know him?"

"I've never met him, but yeah—I know about him. I know about your whole team. Just because you aren't exactly household names in this system doesn't mean that you don't have admirers here."

While Fox mused on that, Scarlet pulled the retractable step out of the side of her fighter's hull and popped the canopy open.

"What is this thing, anyway?" asked Fox, paying more close attention to the design than he had previously. The front portion bore an uncanny resemblance to his own Arwing, but behind the nose cone, the craft adopted a delta-wing design with two massive angled rear stabilizers with two smaller ones on the craft's underside. Two small forward-swept wings sat ahead of the main triangles, but their thickness and design suggested that they existed to manipulate the craft's relative gravity, similar to the rear stabilizers.

"This," Scarlet replied, a small grin on her lips, "…is a Gaia Artemis exospheric interceptor. Not much armor or shield capacity, but it's quick and packs a lot of firepower. It's also worth mentioning that this one was the first prototype with a g-diffuser, like yours has."

Fox narrowed his eyes. "I know the technology has been copied a bit, but that's supposed to be a Space Dynamics patented system. How did that end up out here?"

"We have our ways," Scarlet smirked. "This particular one also has a bit of an engine upgrade."

Fox glanced at the aft end of the craft and noticed that behind the flowing delta wings, two oversized engines poked out from the rear hull.

"They do unfortunately hurt the stability a lot, but if I need to get away from something in a hurry, whatever's after me isn't going to be able to keep up," said Scarlet.

Fox looked back at her. "I kind of want to see it in action."

"Hey, stick around and maybe you'll get to," Scarlet grinned.

- § -

The two lifted off, leaving Saijivo and heading to the station orbiting the planet. For the time being, they split up, with Fox returning to the Great Fox and Scarlet docking her fighter in her small transport's hangar bay. Per her and Fox's agreement, she planned to dock her own ship in the Great Fox's hangar, but not until both ships left the station.

Fox landed in the Great Fox's hangar before Peppy and Slippy returned from their own planetary expedition. Knowing that he needed to do it anyway in preparation for the superluminal jump to Skallis, he secured his Arwing and climbed out. He exited the hangar and traversed the seemingly interminable corridor leading back to the elevator to the bridge. With no one else onboard, a quiet, haunting air fell over the vessel. In the past year, this was one of only two times where he had been alone on the ship that his father had commissioned before his untimely death. He thought about its history, and about the crippling, unending loan on it that still needed to be paid off. At this point, he had more equity in the vessel than debt, but that was assuming that he could find a buyer willing to pay the price he thought it merited.

"I'm kind of jealous of Scarlet," Fox mused. "She doesn't have all this overhead. She can keep it simple, and it doesn't seem to affect her ability to finish jobs. Then again, she doesn't have the ability to turn the tide of a fleet vs. fleet space battle and change the outcome of a planetary assault. But when the hell am I going to need to do that?"

His ears twitched, alerting him to the subtle, high pitched noise of two Arwings landing in the hangar behind him. Turning around, he walked back into the cavernous space, just as Peppy and Slippy docked their respective fighters and climbed out. Fox walked towards them and smiled. "Sorry for the short vacation."

"I'll say," Slippy replied. "We got all of one day down there. That might have been a good thing, though. Peppy was starting to look at the casinos in Yaruit a little too fondly."

The hare returned a crooked smile. "Hey—I wasn't going to bet anything that I wasn't willing to lose."

Slippy shook his head. "That's what they all say."

Peppy took the opportunity to change the subject. "So, Fox, what about your new friend? She's not here yet, is she?" He looked around the hangar for any unfamiliar ships and saw none.

"No," said Fox. "She has to get her transport ready first. She'll dock in here after we separate from the station."

Peppy nodded. "How long is she going to be staying on the ship?"

"As it stands right now, only until we get to Skallis. Our lightdrive is faster than hers, so it made sense to give her a ride since we're both going to the same place."

His mentor gave him a sly, unbelieving smirk in response.

"I'm not looking to add a new member to the team," Fox declared.

"If you say so," Peppy replied with a quiet laugh before walking towards the hangar exit. "I'll start the process of disconnecting with the platform so you can get one of the guest quarters ready for her. Unless…"

"She's not staying in my room, Peppy," Fox shot back, a bit more aggressively than he would have liked.

Peppy laughed again, lumbering out of the hangar with Slippy in tow.

Fox crossed his arms and looked out the front of the hangar. Unfortunately, the majestic view of space was blocked by the dingy, corroded shell of the Saijivo orbital station. Turning around, he made his way towards the ship's crew quarters, where he set to work getting one of the many unused living spaces ready for Scarlet and blowing out the cobwebs, both real and metaphorical.

- § -

Six hours later…

The Great Fox raced through the void, its superluminal drive propelling it towards Skallis. According to Peppy's calculations, they would arrive in the planet's vicinity in two hours—in other words, 10:00 PM in Yaruit's local time. Fox already felt exhausted, mostly from having his already-limited sleep the previously night interrupted by Scarlet waking him and goading him into skinny-dipping and later bathing with her. On second thought, maybe being tired to the point of near-collapse wasn't so bad.

The lack of sleep was beginning to weigh on him, however. The uneventful trip through space gave him the opportunity to show Scarlet around the ship and introduce her to her temporary accommodations, which he was not entirely sure she would even use. After all, her home was on Skallis, and they were slated to arrive at an early enough time for her to unload her equipment and return to her own personal dwelling place.

Now, though, Fox and Scarlet found themselves in the Great Fox's rec room. The space lacked decorations for the most part and offered a large television, an air hockey table, a good-sized refrigerator, and an old, worn-out couch that Fox's father had placed in the ship before he passed it on to his son.

Fox dropped onto the couch and curled up on the extreme left edge. Every muscle in his body made it painfully apparent that his eyes were about to force themselves shut. Scarlet, on the other hand, seemed to have no shortage of energy. While Fox lounged on the couch and tried to stay awake, she took a seat next to him and powered up the TV with its remote. She scrolled through the selection of films and shows that Fox and his crew had downloaded, looking for anything that interested her. Being from a different system, she recognized none of the stored media.

She looked at Fox. "Got any recommendations?"

Through half-closed eyes, Fox slowly turned his head in her direction and mumbled, "I've been going through Pizahoiruatakku! recently. It's a stupid show, but it's a lot of fun and there are over 40 episodes."

"Sounds like an anime," Scarlet noted. "What's it about?"

"It's about an angry yellow vixen with no social skills who goes around murdering people with pizza wheels while trying to make her 'senpai' love her. I'm making it sound darker than it is. It's played for laughs, although she does have to live with the consequences of her actions sometimes."

Scarlet smiled and raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a lot of fun. I'll put that on."

"Knock yourself out. I'm going to sleep."

The red vixen gave him an understanding look. "Hey, if you want, I'll wake you up after a half hour so you don't go into a nap coma and end up staying awake all night."

"That would be amazing. Thanks," Fox groaned, closing his eyes and crashing almost immediately.

Scarlet gave Fox a gentle pat on the shoulder and turned her attention to the TV screen. Navigating through the borderline encyclopedic collection of films and shows that Fox and his team had saved to their AV system's storage array, she found Pizahoiruatakku! and selected the pilot episode. The production launched with a cheesy, over-the-top metal theme song, before suddenly, the TV and all the lights in the room shut off. The entire ship lurched violently, the sudden change of movement throwing Scarlet to the left and throwing Fox over the side of the couch.

The sudden impact with the floor jolted Fox awake. "What the hell?!"

While the lights powered back on and Fox rose to his feet, ROB's droning robotic voice took over the ship's speakers. "Subspace obstruction detected—hyperdrive disabled."

Mere seconds later, Peppy commandeered the comms system and shouted, "Fox! Slippy! Come to the bridge now!"